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Kudos to AT&T

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I recently changed cell phone services.  I’d been with AT&T for years – since I got my first cell phone over 10 years ago.  I’m loyal, but I’m not blind, so I went looking for better rates.

It turns out that Sprint could give me the exact same service that AT&T had been supplying, for just a hair over half of what I’d been paying.  I’m not someone who buys strictly on price – I evaluate a lot of factors before making a significant purchase.  So I called AT&T’s customer service department and asked for a lower rate.  They wanted to know why I was considering switching.

“Sprint is going to charge me half of what you do for the same service.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.  I hope our service has been satisfactory, and if there’s anything we can do to help with the transition please let us know.”

No begging me not to go, no attempt to lower their pricing to match what someone else was going to charge me.  No offers of extra goodies to entice me to stay.  While switching over to another carrier was going to be a pain (easier than I imagined, truth be told), I simply say this –

Learn from AT&T’s lesson, and don’t give in to the price shoppers!  I recommend all my clients keep their prices higher than their competitors’.  Why?  So you can afford to give better service, and so that – should the occasion arise where you want to give low-cost or no-cost services – you can afford to do it without going out of business.

Price shoppers will always be out there, looking to snag a deal.  You cannot remove them from the business environment, but you can remove them from your equation.  They simply are not worth your time.  Literally.  You will never be able to stay in business if you cater to price shoppers.  If you offer them a low-ball price, they’ll want a discount on top of that.  If they find a lower price elsewhere, they’ll leave you and go there instead.  I also find that people who insist on the lowest price also want the most personal service.

So, am I disappointed that AT&T didn’t try to bribe me into staying?  Honestly, yes.  On a personal level, you’d think they’d want me to stay.  But they knew from past experience, and a serious attention to profit margins, that a half-price customer just isn’t worth it.  From a business standpoint, I applaud them for knowing the kind of clients they want, and the price point that type of client is willing to pay.  That’s their pool of prospects, and everyone else isn’t.

Bypass the cheapskates – sell to the right people at the right price.

Starting to use Twitter

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In addition to making blog posts here, I’ve begun posting on my long-dormant Twitter account, AhZhillAy.  What’s nice about Twitter is that it forces me to shut the hell up after just a few characters.  “If you have nothing nice to say. . .”  Well, I’d modify that to, “If you have nothing of value to impart, don’t tweet anything at all.”

I also use TweetDeck – which allows me to cheat.  I take abt 15 minutes and pound out tweets for the rest of the week.  Then, TweetDeck posts them for me, regardless of whether I’m even on-line or not.  Granted I can do the same thing with WordPress, but since the form factor is so much longer, it would take me a whole workday to sit down and get a week’s worth of posts ready.  And by the time the 3rd or 4th one was ready to go, I’d probably want to change it anyway.

I’m not a fan of taking time away from the other projects I’m writing to post blogs (or even microblogs), but I firmly believe in putting yourself someplace you’ll be tripped over by potential clients.  The more often they say, “Every time I turn around I see your name,” the better chance you have of getting them to engage with you.

What are you doing to get tripped over?

Info member sites

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For the last 5 days – well, nights actually – I’ve been working on putting together paid membership sites for a couple of the books I have coming out.  I’ll be doing them as WordPress sites, so that each lesson can consist of blog posts and replies (questions, comments, requests for clarifications, etc.), plus the vids, PDFs or both that make up the lesson.

I’m also putting together the accompanying Facebook Pages for the sites (“Get the book for free when you sign up for the course!”), as well as the autoresponder e-mails (I use MailChimp).  How come it seems like more work when I’m doing it for myself than when I’m doing it for a client?

Don’t worry – when the books & the courses are ready, I’ll offer them to my clients and readers at a significant discount.

What kind of on-line marketing are you doing?

Ratcheting up

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I had a job in retail a long time ago, working at a now-defunct chain called Software Etc.  Over the years, I’d run into some of the people I worked with.  One guy, Steve, went on to start a couple of businesses.  He was doing well enough that he’d hired a junior partner – slash – office manager, and a part-time phone sales person.

Steve and his manager decided that they were leaving a lot of money on the table, and wanted a way to scoop it back up.  Just a cursory glance over their lack of process told me they could easily be making at least 3 times what they were currently pulling in, just by creating a sales process and following it.

In the few minutes that I was allowed to sit in the main office, I saw their “sales person” polishing her nails, reading a book, and brushing her hair.  I was told she was there strictly to take orders and try to upsell, since she really wasn’t comfortable with making outbound calls.  I didn’t hear the phone ring once in all the time I was at their offices.

My initial suggestions were met with outright hostility.  Why would they make her do anything she didn’t want to?  How dare I suggest that people who’d been filling out postage-paid interest cards actually get a phone call from her?  If they took my suggestion and had her practice a follow-up process with current customers, didn’t I realize that would be taking time away from her phone duties?  I delivered my recommendations and was shooed out.  My follow-up calls and e-mails were never answered.

It was a case of, “I want the extra money, but I don’t want to change the way we’re doing things around here.”

I find I’m currently in the same situation.  Do I want to make some major changes and shove a rocket up the tail of Agile’ Marketing?  Or am I content with the way things are?  Should I be forced at gunpoint to drink my own medicine?

Stick around – I have a feeling we’ll both be surprised by developments in the near future.

Poor support is worse than none

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A few days back, I wrote to the support dept for one of the places I work with.  I told them, quite politely and in detail, that a browser plug-in they supply was only working correctly in FireFox.  I supplied them with pictures showing how the widget was failing to work.  I did everything but actually re-write the code for them.

Their reply?  “We don’t support browsers, but if you have problems with your account, contact us again.”

Granted, this was a 1st-level support person, someone who follows scripts and sends back canned answers.  This answer will satisfy some people, and tick off others just enough so they don’t ask for more help.  And then there’s me.

But this is exactly why I teach my staff and interns to READ and THINK.  If they don’t know an answer, they should admit it, and tell the person that real help will be coming soon – and then make sure it does.  Because one person providing poor support makes your entire organization look stupid.  It does more damage than not providing support at all.

Most poor e-mail support comes from not reading the incoming e-mail.  A lot of high-end support ticket software pre-screens incoming support requests and suggests the “best” reply.  In other words, real people aren’t doing their jobs.  They assume (ASS-U-ME) that a platitude and a pat on the head works for everyone.  And it doesn’t.

Support is a keystone of marketing, people! It’s not the 99 orders you sell and fill correctly, it’s how you handle the one that gets messed up.  What’s important to people is how you address their questions and concerns.  Frankly, a seemless transaction that satisfies (there’s that word again!) their needs or desires goes right out of their head.

The original Tylenol poisoning scandal was handled so amazingly well, their actions were held up as a paragon of crisis management across multiple industries for over 25 years.  This time, Johnson & Johnson screwed the pooch with the Tylenol (and other) recalls.  From now on, which will they be remembered for?

Am I equating failed code support with a bungled cover-up?  Absolutely not.  But look what poor support choices have done for J&J this time.  What can it do to your business?

Where are all your posts, Scott?

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I’ve recently been savaged by haters (okay, one of my friends commented over a beer) about the paucity of blog posts on this web site.

It’s simple.  When I start writing, it usually turns out to be an article, or a chapter in an upcoming book.  It’s very rare when I can keep the word count down enough to make it a blog post.

Besides, posting a chapter from the middle of a book is like inviting someone in during the middle of a conversation.  I tend to “build” books and articles in a pyramidal fashion – laying all the ground work, explaining things, and then the stuff on top relies on the groundwork to support it, to make the information understandable.  When the underpinnings aren’t there, everything falls apart.

I’ll try to do a better job going forward.

Shoes!

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When you’re going for that first job interview, your parents (should) look at you and say, “You’re not wearing those shoes, are you?  People will look at your shoes and judge you.”

While I mostly agree with that sentiment, staffing a booth at a trade show is not the time to try to break in new dress shoes.  It’s more important to be able to stay on your feet with a smile on your face than it is to be seen wearing wingtips or whatever.   (The exception, of course, is if you’re attending a footwear convention.)

I have a pair of broken-in black leather sneakers, stuffed with off-the-shelf gel inserts, that I wear when going to a trade show as either a staffer or just as an attendee.  They can keep me going for at least 8 hours, which is really saying something.  My podiatrist and friend Mark Post will tell you what horrible feet I have!  Many of the bones have been broken, my Achilles tendons are shot, and my right ankle is in the early stages of arthritis.

Of course, as a business person Dr Post would love to sell me a set of custom orthotics, but as my friend he’s happy that an inexpensive pair of gel insoles works fine.

So when you’re standing in your booth space (not behind the table, I hope!) and people look askance at your shoes, smile – which shouldn’t be too hard – and thank them for noticing your comfortable footwear.

Customer service isn’t fair

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I supply most of my clients with a copy of Zingerman’s Guide to Giving Great Service.  Click on the Recommended Reading link and get yourself a copy.  It’s thin, so take a couple hours and read the damned thing.  Then go back, and read it again.  You paid for it – write notes in the margin.

One of my favorite points raised: Customer service isn’t fair.  We try to impose a “one size fits all” approach to handling sales and service, but more often than not if backfires on us.  If life were fair, we wouldn’t need customer service.  Products wouldn’t break during shipping, customers and vendors would be forgiving to a fault if the product or the check was late.  Service would be perfect, and there would be no need for complaints or unhappiness.

The people in your organization responsible for customer service – this includes the Big Boss, and the front line people – should read the book.  Better, go through the Zingerman’s customer service training.  Not only will it save you money, but by practicing the techniques learned, you’ll make money and do more for your brand than almost anything else you can pay money for.

Trip the links fantastic

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I was going to put “link” singular in the title, because people might think it referred to golf if I used the plural.  About 1/4 of a second later, I realized that I would be defeating the purpose of this post if I shied away.  So, here we are.

I’ve talked before about putting your business somewhere it will be tripped over.  One of the best ways to do this is with a links page on your site.  That is, a list of other sites, blogs, resources – whatever – that you like, are local to you, or are recommending to your clients/customers/patients.

Links perform a couple major functions.  The first is that done correctly they are the on-line equivalent of a personal recommendation.  If you’ve read almost anything I’ve written, you’ll know that word-of-mouth promotion is the be-all and end-all of marketing (how’s that for hyperbole!).  Well, at any rate, it’s damned important.  Most of our “decisions” are not decisions at all, but simply following the recommendations of those we know.

The second function of links, and the one we’re discussing here, is that they provide what I call search hooks.  Let’s say you put a link to a local Italian restaurant on your site – one you happen to like.  Your website deals with, let’s say. . . exotic fish.  I’m an af-fish-ianado (I couldn’t pass up the pun) of both exotic aquatics and Italian food, but today I’m searching for someplace to have lunch.  One of the links that pops up in my search happens to be from your fish site.  I visit, like what I see, and mark it for later before clicking the link to visit the restaurant’s page.  You can do that with shoe stores, your doctor, a doggie playcare facility. . . almost anything as long as you can show relevance.  A page full of random links?  Those went out in the dark ages of the ‘net – about 1999.

If you put up a dozen links, that’s a dozen more ways your site can be found during engine searches.

Your virtual bard of business

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Minstrel might be a more accurate word, but from the 1850’s on, that word has gained a different and less desirable meaning in the U.S.

Long before there were written languages, history was passed orally from place to place, and generation to generation.  Stories and news were memorized, often set to rhyme or meter because the tales were so long.  Even after languages allowed histories to be written down, the cost of making copies or of transporting original works was so high that traveling tell-tales were still important.

If you read my books or articles – even my blog posts – you’ll note that I spend a lot of time telling stories.  Narratives allow the teller to work in facts and statistics, important words and phrases, in specific places and in order.  Tales allow the listener/reader to absorb salient points without having said points stick in their mental craw.  Or simply: stories help facts go down, like sugar helps medicine go down.

We are programmed to remember stories and rhymes – studies have shown this over and over again.  The Bible uses parables or illustrative stories to make moral lessons easier to remember.  Easy-to-remember stories are also easy-to-repeat stories.

Some of us, it’s true, are more at home with a roster of facts, figures and statistics.  Some of us (including myself) did very well in school because we remembered dates, names and other ephemera and could regurgitate it on command.  But narratives – stories with a beginning, middle and end, and having a moral or “point” to them – are easier for most members of our culture to remember.  (Oddly, this particular post doesn’t try to tell a story!  Hmm. . . )  If you can remember the story, you can apply it’s lessons.

Which is why I spend a lot of time educating via stories.

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